MSS: Steve Bultman and Jay Holmes

When Texas A&M moves to the Southeastern Conference next year, the swimming and diving programs will be ready for the new challenges. Head coaches Steve Bultman and Jay Holmes offer their thoughts on the move, how recruiting will be affected and what it will be like to be in a different conference than the University of Texas for the first time.

Show Transcript: (Note: This is an automated service where some typos and grammatical errors may occur.)

Peter Busch: Welcome to The Morning Swim Show for Tuesday, October 18th 2011. I'm your host Peter Busch. In the FINIS monitor today we'll talk to Jay Holmes and Steve Bultman. They are respectively the men's and women's head swim coaches at Texas A&M University, which was part of the big conference shakeup recently. A&M will soon join the SEC. Coach Holmes and Bultman join us right now in the FINIS monitor from College Station, Texas. Coaches, welcome to the show. How are you? All right, so who are you guys going to hate now that you're not in the same conference as Texas?

Steve Bultman: It will be a lot different obviously just because we've had such a great tradition between our two schools. It will be different for everybody concerned. It's been a great tradition, it's a tradition that we've really enjoyed being a part of, but we have some new things out there that we're going to have some opportunities that I think are going to be a lot of fun for us to do.

Jay Holmes: Yes, I mean that's a great rivalry. Obviously having them there has pushed us to help us get better and I think the last couple of years we've been battling on and it's helped both teams get better and get ready for NCAA's and everything.

Peter Busch: Jay, I think you've been at the school a quarter century now? I mean that's got to feel a little weird.

Jay Holmes: Yes.

Steve Bultman: Longer than that, Peter, I think.

Jay Holmes: It's been a while so it will be weird. It will just be different, there's no doubt about that, it will be different.

Peter Busch: I know most of these conference shakeups are about football. Are you guys cool with it? I mean are you excited about the change?

Steve Bultman: Well, I mean from my point of view, I grew up in Southeastern Conference territory and swam in LSU and coached at LSU and coached at Georgia before I came here, so in a lot of ways it's exciting but at the same time this is my 14th year at A&M and 13 years in the Big 12, and we have a lot of great rivalries in coaching, getting together and knowing all the staffs and stuff like that and you hate to lose that and to leave that. But at the same time for our standpoint with the women it's thankfully we've gotten better when one or two race against some other good competition and a lot of schools have their traditional dual meets already set up and it's tough to get in and get a good schedule with some of these other schools and I think we've swam Auburn three times in the last five or six years and Georgia once and we've tried to do that and so adding some of these other SEC schools in dual meets I think will be great and then obviously the Southeastern Conference championship and that and obviously pack 12 or whatever they're calling it now is definitely the two best for sure so that will be exciting being part of that. But again, as I said, leaving the Big 12, that's been great too, so it's exciting but it's also a little sad. And for Jay having a lot more men's teams that will be exciting for him and it's on a mend for sure.

Jay Holmes: From the Big 12's point of view, I mean, all three teams were in the top 25 last year with us, Missouri, and Texas. With just a three-team conference I think it was a very good conference because there was a lot of fast swimming going on, like I said all teams were in the top 25 last year. The SEC does present a whole new ball game out there just because we're going to make the ninth men's team in the SECs, and that is the premier conference meet out there and I've talked to some of their coaches before. This all went down about how their conference meet happened and it's going to be exciting, no doubt about it.

Peter Busch: Well I think it's great for men's swimming to have a conference meet that's going to be that exciting. I wish growing up in the now Pac-12, that they had more men's teams. The conference meet is just the same three or four teams really. We could use some more competition. It's great for you guys but I guess the flipside is does it make recruiting tougher or do you feel like you'll stay in your same areas?

Steve Bultman: I feel like we'll stay in the same areas and even maybe add a few more in the southeast a little bit. I mean we recruit that area a little bit and I think some of the girls that we brought in this fall have been kind of excited that before we knew for sure and now that we do know for sure that we are going to be in the SEC next year.

Jay Holmes: I know that there - at least I'm thinking that there are going to be kids that are here in the state of Texas that that's going to be intriguing to them to be able to stay in the state of Texas for their school and still be able to have a conference meet like the SECs, I think that's going to be exciting for a lot of people. That's a great opportunity and so that's kind of how I'm looking at it when we recruit other areas. I'm sure if someone has an interest in A&M we're going to be interested to find out about them if they're going to help our program.

Peter Busch: Hey Steve, a few months ago we had Breeja on the show. I mean just an amazing talent obviously but the vibe I took away is that she does not realize how good she is. Am I the only one who thinks that?

Steve Bultman: She's starting to realize that a little bit more and thankfully she's bounced back from her health issues this summer and she's training really well and very focused. Compared to where she was at this point last year she's leaps and bounds ahead of that, which is exciting.

Peter Busch: And Jay, on the guys' side, it looks like John Dalton's maybe your best swimmer this year. Tell us about what the guys' team looks like.

Jay Holmes: Well we will be relying again on relays, relays and diving, that's where we've gotten a lot of our points in NCAAs every year and I think it's going to be that way again this year. Dalton will be very pivotal for us. He's going to have a lot of chances to swim a lot of events at NCAAs and obviously with the relays, other guys are going to have to step up to help make sure that we get there. Last year we didn't get our medleys there which really hurt us. So much of our equation has to be because our relays get to the meet and the divers just do what they do, there's just a great diving program here at A&M.

Peter Busch: Well guys, good luck the rest of the season and good luck with the move to the SEC.

Steve Bultman: Thanks Peter.

Jay Holmes: Thank you, Peter, we appreciate your time.

Peter Busch: All right, that's Steve Bultman and Jay Holmes joining us from Texas A&M and that is it for today's show. I'm Peter Busch reminding you to keep your head down at the finish.